“James van Riemsdyk wasn’t about to reflect on how he went from a forward who couldn’t slide a puck into an unprotected net with his glove to one who recently has become one of the most productive on the Flyers.

Why not just keep on rolling and not bother to give it much thought?

“Maybe I’m a little bit more confident out there,” the 21-year-old left winger said after his goal got the Flyers going in a hard-earned 2-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center. “Obviously, it helps to get bounces like that. It seemed like those weren’t going in at the beginning of the year.”

For one of the few times this season, the last-place Devils, who have lost 11 straight road games, were alive. Unlike Thursday’s matchup in Newark, N.J., they made the Flyers work for the two points.

“What you saw today was a different New Jersey Devils team,” Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said. “There was no free ice out there. It was physical. It was hard fought. Every inch had to be accounted for, and if it wasn’t we’d have gotten buried. It was not the same game at New Jersey. That was a much quieter game.”

The victory left the Flyers with 26 wins at the midpoint of the season for just the seventh time in club history and the second time since 1986-87, when they won 27 games on their way to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The win punched Laviolette’s ticket to the NHL All-Star Game on Jan. 20 in Raleigh, N.C. He will be one of the coaches because the Flyers finished with the best percentage of points vs. games played at the league’s halfway point.”